Feynman hated Venn diagrams. He much preferred his own, which he described in layman's terms as "an intuitive graphical representation of a contribution to the transition amplitude or correlation function of a quantum mechanical field theory". I tried to graph it but the circles came out all stringy.

I disagree with Bissage, in that "What We Do Well" is the prerequisite for "What We Can Be Paid To Do." Agreed that "What We Want To Do" is surplusage (more or less a hoity-toity way of saying surplus, excess).

I once used a Venn diagram in mock oral argument to display the different "locations" of caselaw within the partially overlapping coverages of the state Tort Claims Act and Road Defect statute. My professor, who is now on the Appeals Court, thought it was brilliant.

Her husband, who was the visiting mock judge, looked askance, and ask those very same questions about my Venn diagram, and dismissed it.

Many lawyers do not like math and the Venn Diagram may remind them of unpleasant experiences in seventh grade math class. (Not to offend...I have asked many college age pre law students, and actual law students what directed them to choose law as a career, and the answer almost always an aversion to math and science)

a) I am quite capable of working as an analytical chemist, and was at one point paid for such work. I disliked it rather intensely.

b) I am also quite capable of working as a restoration-grade trim carpenter, but never could figure our how to monetize that skill into more than the occasional (very interesting) job.

c) I am even more capable of production horticulture -- fruits, vegetables, flowers, and so on. It is also a discipline I very much enjoy. The regional vegetable market is largely "closed" and thus non-monetizable.

Net result ... I very happily earn my living producing greenhouse flowers for retail sale here on the farm.

Seventh grade? We did Venn diagrams in elementary school. I think it was part of the New Math experiments. I was born in 1960.

A few years ago I gave my niece two books for Christmas: Catherine, Called Birdy and Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind. She loved them both, especially Shabanu. I told her later that it had occurred to me that both were about young girls her age whose parents wanted to marry them off and she told me that she had drawn a Venn diagram to express the books' similarities and differences.

My niece is now a tattoo artist.

Anyway. I have found myself in the position of being paid what I could do well and didn't like and it was miserable. Will try never to be there again.

And I'm only half kidding -- why think of 'What We Want To Do' as the only unchangeable factor in the situation?

It's true that "Learn to say no" is the only one of the three messages on a two-circle overlap that explicitly tells you not to do the activity. But couldn't you just take it as a given that if you can move into the "Hooray!" section -- which, in this case, would be accomplished by "learning to like it" -- then that would be a good idea? The very existence of a "Hooray!" section implies that you should want to be there if possible. Conversely, the other two-circle overlaps (the ones that explicitly tell you to move into "Hooray!") could be taken to include an implicit addendum: "or avoid doing it."

What about sex? One may want to do it, often even, and may do it very well. But one cannot, legally anyway, be paid to do it. The Venn suggests "monetize it". Does this suggest legitimized prostitution?

So you are really good at one thing and get paid boat loads of money to do it, but don't particularly like it. "Just say no!" and then what?

It also ignores the stress factor. Doing a job I dislike for $80,000 a year is still a hell of a lot better than doing a job I love for $12,000 a year. Let me get my kids out of the house and my 401k distributions started and then we'll talk about the latter (though not many nubile young women would likely want to pose nude for a 60-year-old man.)